Bullying round table with students at Centerville High School

by Elyse Coulter

CENTERVILLE, Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) -- We've been talking about teens and bullying, but there's no one who knows it best than those living through it now. Fox 45's Elyse Coulter sat down with four teens from Centerville to talk about their experience.

The kids we spoke to were candid, honest, and open. But what surprised me most of all were the reasons they gave for doing the interview in the first place.

"Someone has to be the voice for the people that are afraid to have one," said Megan Meyer, 18-years-old, Senior at Centerville High School.

"I think it's just completely wrong for someone to pick on someone else who can't defend themself, so I'm pretty passionate about the topic and I also want to be a part of the solution," said Jake Rankey, 17-years-old, Junior at Centerville High School.

"How do you guys define bullying? what do you think bullying is?" asked the reporter.

"Bullying is more verbal now than ever before it maybe used to be more physical contact like punching someone but now it's like talking behind their back and that person finding out about what they said and it just hurts them," said Cooper Jones, 18-years-old, Senior at Centerville High School.

"It's the subtle comments that people feel like they need to say which aren't necessary," said Danielle Meyer, 17-years-old, Junior at Centerville High School.

"How do you think social media has changed that? That aspect of bullying?" asked the reporter.

"I think social media creates cowards out of people just because they think they can do anything because they're behind a screen," said Megan.

"Makes them feel powerful even though they're just weak if you do that for sure," said Jones.

"Where does the school's responsibility end and the parent's begin?" asked the reporter.

"I think they come together. I think they should both, both should be responsible and they should work together to stop it," said Rankey.

"School is supposed to be a place that you go to feel safe you should feel like I'm here, people are going to look out for me and I'm safe, not some place where, what's going to happen next?" said Danielle.

"There's that handful of kids that don't have a good home life and they don't really have those boundaries and those guidelines that they got from their parents and I kind of think that's where the school needs to step in because I mean that kid doesn't really knwo anything but their bad home life and the school could be a safe spot for them, but the school isn't taking advantage of that." said Megan.

"Basically what I'm hearing from you guys is it takes a village," said the reporter.

"I think the more accepting you are of others, the more others are accepting of you," said Megan.

"If a community comes together like I've seen it in sports and with Springboro, with Max Strong, the way all these communities came together was just incredible and so I think nothing is more powerful than a community is together," said Rankey.